On The Nature Of Spiders
by Monoshiri
Summary: Zaku, Kidoumaru, and painful lessons about the spidery psyche, with commentary from the Sound's peanut gallery. Questionable gender, cursing, and slightly confused shounenai if you squint.


_A/N: Confused? Go check out Chapter 16 of "Overtones of Discordant Melody" by Gigabomb, in which the Sound Four suffer the consequences of one of Kabuto and Orochimaru's experiments gone awry. This one-shot is the result of lack of sanity in one party feeding the same condition in the other. Enjoy._

It didn't go away. Naturally, Hidden Sound being a goldfish bowl on a scale that other hidden villages could only imagine, word got around, and the rank and file shinobi were careful to avoid the "victims" as much as they could without appearing disrespectful, in case spontaneous involuntary sex change was catching. The thought of Orochimaru-sama with PMS was also a factor, as most Sound ninja had a healthy sense of self-preservation.

'Most' being a category that did not include one Abumi Zaku.

A week after Kabuto left for Hidden Leaf (to maintain her cover, she'd concocted an elaborate story involving a strange curse and was bringing a dead Mist-nin back with her to prove it), Sound's prospective genin trio returned, and were almost immediately brought up to date by the rumor mill. Kinuta Dosu didn't believe it until he ran into Sakon in one of the lower tunnels after reporting to Orochimaru.

The Trio and the Four generally maintained a state of casual detente with the occasional fight involved. Nonetheless, there was a wary silence as Dosu sized up his fellow Oto-nin's new look. After a second or two, he shrugged.

"Huh, so it's true. I imagine Tayuya's a bit smug right now."

Sakon rewarded him with a thin smirk. "Are you kidding? He hasn't stopped cursing since he realized what happened. And he is _not_ happy with the new equipment. Keeps threatening to chop it off."

Dosu winced. "Business as usual, then. Did you pass Zaku on the way here? As soon as he heard, he was very insistent on coming to see you..."

"I didn't see him."

"Hn. Hopefully he hasn't done anything..."

There was a scream from the direction of the Sound Four's rec room.

"...stupid. Right. I guess it was too much to hope for."

Sakon listened to the echoes of the scream for a moment, and then turned and made her way back to the rec room, with Dosu in shambling pursuit.

They found Zaku crouched in a corner, clawed and bloodied arms thrust out in front of him with the palms outward, snarling like an animal. A few feet away, Kidoumaru was looking at him speculatively and licking blood off her lips.

Dosu stared. "Um..."

The rest of the room's occupants were ignoring the drama going on in the far corner in favour of some daft old kung fu film on TV, except for Tsuchi Kin, who was attempting to pester Ukon into showing her the proper method of doing a french manicure. The black-haired girl looked up as Dosu and grinned maliciously, cocking her head in the direction of Zaku's plight.

"It's his own damn fault. Sneaking up behind Kidoumaru and hugging her so he could cop a feel goes past stupid and comes out well on the side of suicidal."

"Oh, in that case," Sakon said with a nasty smile, before hopping over the back of the couch onto Kin and Ukon and causing general pandemonium with the seating arrangements.

Dosu was still looking from Zaku to Kidoumaru in disbelief. For his part, Zaku took his eyes off Kidoumaru for a split second to glare daggers at his bandaged comrade. "A little fucking _help_ here, maybe, Dosu?"

"You molested Kidoumaru. Who is currently female." Dosu said patiently.

"It was a fucking _joke!_ She's _nuts!_ If she'd punched me or something that'd be fine, but she just stared at my hands and then at me and then she got this freaky look on her face and then she started _biting_ me and shit!" Zaku paused his diatribe to snarl at Kidoumaru, who'd sidled a little bit closer while Zaku's attention was diverted, a maniacal gleam in her eyes. "What the hell's _wrong_ with you, man--I mean woman--I mean whatever?"

Kidoumaru shrugged and smiled sweetly, all six arms raised in a 'who, me?' gesture. "Can't help it. Racial memory."

This took a few minutes to purcolate in the recesses of Zaku's somewhat broken brain. Dosu watched with a combination of interest and pity as the light dawned.

"You mean...?"

"Yup." Kidoumaru's smile was no longer sweet. "So, you still want to go to bed, Abumi?"

"But--but--but _you're_ not a fucking spider! Why would you--I mean--?" Zaku stared in growing horror at Kidoumaru, before sagging miserably. "Crap...first pair of tits I ever get my hands on, and they're attached to a lunatic."

"Story of your fucking life, Abumi," Tayuya remarked unsympathetically from the couch. Dosu, meanwhile, edged past Kidoumaru carefully and collected Zaku to haul him off to the infirmary. The wind-user clung to his compatriot like a limpet.

"I still don't understand _how_...?"

"Shut up," Dosu told him, not unkindly. "There's really no saving you from your own idiocy sometimes."

As soon as they'd left, Kidoumaru shrugged and sat down on the couch. Tayuya made room for him warily; Ukon and Sakon, meanwhile, fixed the spider-nin with piercing stares.

"So, exactly how much of that was bullshit?"

"About fifty percent," Kidoumaru said cheerfully as she tried to steal the popcorn from Jiroubou. "I count having my chest grabbed as a pretty direct proposition, wouldn't you?"

"Sexual harrassment in the spider world," Kin said thoughtfully. "Short, direct, and with eternal consequences. I like it. By the way, I thought it was common knowledge that Zaku doesn't bathe very often."

"I'm not surprised. He tasted nasty."

x x x x x x x

OWARI


End file.
